Turning tables

Wow. This is a sign that things have changed:

I regard my PhD supervisor, as I've noted before, as a major Force of Good in my life. We have an excellent relationship, which is by now a friendship - I'm pleased to be one of the large network of friends she likes to get tipsy with at conferences and on Home City patios in the summer. But it is largely about me calling upon her as a mentor, of course - I've hoped and assumed that it would always be that way. I call upon her for advice, often. She is godlike in this regard.

So that is why, when I got an email from her two nights ago, requesting my advice about something, I was floored. Granted, this was because I know the person in question. But still - it was my advice she was seeking on a question of professional and quasi-diplomatic importance! How can this be? Wow - times have changed. I don't know what to think of that...I suppose I need to adjust myself to the fact that I have a real position in this little world...I think that adjustment will take years.

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We are leaving Paris tomorrow morning - for Lyon, for three short days. I was lucky to finish with my research yesterday, so could take this day as a free one - I worked really hard this week in an effort to do that. We went for a run - as I have done almost every morning since I've been here (miracle of miracles - it is the world's biggest struggle to get me to go for runs first thing in the morning, at home), and ate pastries (food of angels) and I went to see Goya's etchings. Wow, people. Wow. That's all I can say about that. If any of you happen to be in Paris in the next few weeks, get thee to the Petit Palais to see them.